Knight and Dei - Pony Rides

by Georg

Independence Day - Part One

Tourism really was not the summer job I had planned on.

It was better.

Waking up in a Recreational Vehicle at dawn is inevitable when you’re traveling with tourist pegasi, particularly when one of them is a nursing mother, and double that when the other tourism partner is nocturnal. Nursing school taught me how to deal with short schedules, but by nature of the education, it focuses on sick patients. ‘Healthy as a Horse’ practically defines pegasi, so when Knight and Dei decided to spend their post-partum leave playing US Midwestern tourists, the last person I thought they’d want to accompany them was me, a mere nurse-in-training. After all, there were no end of volunteers at KU Med, as well as various government agencies who practically begged for their own personal pony to boss around, but in the end, it was their decision. Thankfully.

So late night nursing study sessions turned into early morning driving once the semester at KU Med was over, and we promptly set off to explore the American Midwest, just the four of us. Since both pegasi had relatively strict schedules at their Equestrian government jobs, I expected a detailed checklist of tourism, arranged in a minimal travel path with calculated durations at each stop. After all, they had named their newborn somewhat-purple son Twilight, and the OCD habits of Equestria’s nerdiest princess were relatively legendary. ‘Princess Powerpoint’ as she had been nicknamed was a growing celebrity, thus leading to the poor colt’s name much like ‘Diana’ or ‘Liam’ was stuck on human babies by misguided parents.

I was happily mistaken. The couple was on vacation, and ‘schedule’ was the last thing on their minds.

It made me wonder about the young human child approaching the RV door, who could not have been more than eight years old. Knight and Dei had left a trail of delighted youngsters all along their zig-zagging wake from state to state over the last two months. Someday when the child had children of her own, would she name one of them after the ponies she clearly wanted to meet, but was too shy to ask? Still, there were probably human children with stranger names than Twilight.

“Can I help you?” I made certain to open the RV door slowly and quietly, both for the child’s safety and because I could still hear Dei in the back of the RV, feeding Twilight breakfast. Still, the small human child shied almost like a flighty horse at the sound of my voice.

“Uh. Yeah. I saw the trailer, mister, and… are the ponies awake?”

One advantage of a Winnebago of a certain size is a decent towing capacity so you don’t have to keep everything inside, and the small cargo trailer attached behind had all the subtlety and tact of any Equestrian when given a canvas to fill. For security purposes, Knight probably would have preferred it to remain the same shade of plain white as when the couple purchased it, but by the second time I saw it, there were colorful windows painted on the side and tailgate with smiling ponies waving back, interlaced ivy growing out of the window box, and one small painted purple pegasus striving to see over the ornate windowsill. I swear, the darned thing is going to get us into an accident someday with the way people slow down to gawk at it on the highway.

“Dei is still feeding the foal,” I said with the faint sound of minor Equestrian profanity filtering forward from the RV bathroom. Little Twilight had begun to head-butt in earnest since he was reaching the age where he should start to be weaned, and as much as Dei loved to spoil the teething colt with tiny bites of guinea pig pet food alfalfa to discourage such mischief, he was proving to be a handful. Or hoof-ful.

The little girl seemed so depressed at the news that I had to add, “If you get permission from your parents, we might be able to go with Knight on his straw run in a few minutes.”

I made a big deal of checking my iPhone FindMyFriends app, which showed the batpony was nearly back to our parking place in a vacant lot where a Wamego motel used to stand. It was a good example of the mixed new/old zoning from small town Kansas, because it also just happened to be next to the mortuary parking lot where the girl’s church group was selling fireworks. It was not the oddest pairing around, because there was a modern Super 8 motel right down the street next to the Simmer Motel, which had been around for most of a century and had a semi-famous local novel based there.

The girl promptly went running off, and was returning with an obvious parent by the time Knight swooped down with the larger cart and put it down on a perfect landing next to the RV trailer, much like a dark shadow rejoining its host.

“Hey, Carl. Got some prime fresh alfalfa, just as good as anything back home,” he declared with a grin that made his vertical-slitted golden eyes twinkle like some sort of mischievous grey cat in the morning light. “How’s Dei?”

“Playing chew-toy for your son.” I hefted the first alfalfa bale off the cart and into the cargo trailer with a few masculine grunts while Knight got a grip on the next one for me to stack. I wasn’t quite the smallest guy ever to go into nursing at KU, but dense alfalfa made for an awkward load for anybody. Thankfully, I was in good shape before becoming a foalsitter, and as Twilight got heavier, my biceps were getting positively ripped. That’s not to say I could pick up and carry the little colt without some help, because he weighed nearly forty pounds now. Pegasi have a weight-reducing magic or they’d never get off the ground, after all. That allowed me to carry Junior when we were touristing, but when he saw something interesting and wanted down, he got down like a violet anvil with sharp hooves.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to pick some straw up from this farmer also? The kid over there wants to go with us.”

It was the matter of minutes for the kid’s father to sign the permission slip and for me to buckle us both into the cart. Then Knight spread his dark bat-like wings and lifted off so gently that the loose wisps of alfalfa on the floor barely moved. The smooth ride was a holdover from his job as occasional driver for Princess Luna—who I had never met—although I had briefly shook hooves with Princess Celestia at KU Med, and seemed to bump into Cadence every few minutes when she was in the vicinity, mostly with a cute nurse ‘coincidentally’ in tow.

Pony airspeed is not really that different in the short run from car speed, but pegasi can go in a straight line as long as they stay under a thousand feet elevation to keep the FAA happy, plus the farmer’s field was not that far away from Wamego. The farmer was all smiles despite the early hour, of course, and helped the child and me get the straw bales strapped down with bungee cords, then we were on the way back to the RV.

“Do ponies eat straw?” asked the kid.

“They nibble on it a little, like celery,” I admitted. “Mostly, we use the bales for seats and something to support Twilight’s crib.”

“That’s the baby,” declared the kid. “I saw pictures on Facebook.”

Ahead of us, I could see Knight straighten his spine and fly even smoother than before. Even his close-cut violet mane barely rippled in the slipstream, and if it were not for the long, slow motions of his membranous wings, it would have been easy to think he was posing for a photo.

If there was a competition to get selfies with a pony, Dei would be very close to setting a record, but Knight attracted girls with cell phones like a porch light collects moths. There was a reason we only put announcements on Twitter and Facebook instead of having long conversations with the fans, because if we did, the three of us would be typing to teenage girls 24/7 instead of having any time for tourism.

To be honest, I think if the pony couple had enough money to tour the country without giving rides for twenty bucks a pop, they’d still do it just for the happy chatter from the children and the parents. And I’ll admit it was quite a kick from my perspective also. The vast majority of paying customers were a mix of overjoyed and celebrity-struck, resulting in me developing a whole series of ‘canned responses’ for repeating questions, but every day there were brand new experiences to either enjoy or dread, depending on the circumstances.

The ‘dread’ was the main reason they quit doing appearances in major cities. Some people think they deserve to break the rules, despite our extensive (so far) experience in writing them down. A flying pegasus can carry about twenty percent of their body weight comfortably, and pull much more than they weigh. If Knight and Dei break out the saddles, they can each carry a pre-teen child upwards of about eighty pounds or so all day. It seems high for their apparent size because pegasi may look like dainty birds, but even Dei weighs in at over two hundred and mumble pounds of mostly muscle, and Knight is just a hair under three hundred while wearing his armor. They’re short but compact, and getting a foot stepped on is no laughing matter, as most rural children know from experience.

The cart descended to the space next to the RV without even a bump, and I helped our excited young passenger out, waiving away the father’s offer of a twenty ex post facto. “We needed one flight for practice this morning anyway,” I explained. “Winds aloft, humidity, and that sort of thing. Besides, she helped load the straw.”

By that time, Dei had come out of the RV in all of her pink feathered glory with a full Twilight sprawled across her back, and the growing crowd of children zoomed in on her like magnets. I helped quash their youthful enthusiasm back to something a little more appropriate to the morning while Knight loaded the straw into the utility trailer, then I excused myself to help with the rest of his morning chores.

The RV’s one-axle trailer was not that large, but we really did not want to get something too heavy for the Winnebago to easily tow. Our tack fit in it with some space to spare, although the odd collection of riding equipment took some maneuvering during loading. On the bottom, there was the larger pegasus cart which Knight had just pulled solo for his hay run. It had space for four passengers or the back seat would come out so we could use it for cargo, like the hay today, or camping supplies and a cooler for when we wanted to go hiking. Then there was the regular two-seat sulky for taking couples on rides, or on special occasions, for weddings (at an additional charge which includes one song). Then hanging from hooks on the trailer ceiling there was a customized single-seat riding sulky for each of the adult pegasi, painted to match their coat colors and cutie marks, bright pink with a smiling sun and dark grey with a silver shield. Oh, and their saddles, one of which Dei was wearing at the moment since it included some (ahem) underbody support and accidental kiddie-kick armor for the nursing mother.

One way or another, little Twilight was getting weaned soon, because he was just starting to bite also. I just wasn’t sure about the goat milking machine the pegasi had purchased so they could bottle feed him through the transition, because I knew who would be the human to milk the mother pegasus, and… well, it was an uncomfortable concept, but my nursing training had exposed me to far worse situations.

Anyway, I helped Knight get all of the carts and bales arranged in the trailer, put the painted plywood cutout of ‘Knight and Dei Kodak Photo Spot’ up on top of the pile for now, and managed to get the door padlocked.

“Thanks, Carl.” Dei could manage a kiss on my cheek with a bit of judicious stretching, and she passed over her snoozing child with a smooth transition of support we had practiced now for several weeks. “Hun, ready for our morning flight?”

“Always, my love,” rumbled back Knight in that verbal cross between Elvis and James Earl Jones he did so well.

In moments, they were airborne and headed south. Most likely they planned on cruising around town and getting accustomed to the local landmarks again, although we had been here two other times and nothing had probably changed other than the tulips having gone away after Tulip Festival was over, and the custom saddle shop being… Well, Dei had been texting yesterday while I was driving, and she was wearing the saddle outfit the shop owner had made for her back in late April, so maybe she was getting it adjusted for her recent weight shift as long as we were in town.

I let the human kids spoil sleepy Twilight for a few minutes before chasing them gently away and heading over to their fireworks stand. It was just opening, and a few fireworks for later would not be out of line, although I had to pay for them out of personal funds, not the corporate card.

Technically, I’m an employee of Knight and Dei Pony Rides, LLC. My responsibilities included minor medical care, driving the ‘Whinnybago’ as they called it, cultural attache, foalsitter as needed, personal groomer, and ‘other duties as assigned and accepted.’ That included a credit card for legitimate expenses, meals and entertainment within certain limits, and a rather generous amount of acceptance for pegasus generosity, also within limits, to wit… “Hey Carl, would you like a t-shirt? Hey, Carl, I won a goldfish at the game. Do you think we could take one of those ground squirrels home with us? Does your mother need this cookie jar we found at the yard sale? etc…”

Some on-the-job questions were far easier to answer than others. In a pinch, I had the phone number of the Equestrian legal counsel in Kansas City, but so far we had only needed that once, when a rather overzealous Missouri State Trooper had wanted to arrest me for unlicensed transport of livestock. Three minutes later, his cell phone rang, and the only thing I could hear out of that conversation was an unbroken string of “Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.” Thankfully, that was the worst things had gotten so far on our trip.

My fireworks purchase complete, I strolled most of the way back to the RV with Twilight dozing in his modified SlowTon across-the-shoulder pet carrier when a larger new-ish vehicle eased its way into the parking lot and a well-dressed man got out.

“Mister Russo? Is that Twilight?” he asked, which was a little excessive because how many other people were carrying a pegasus colt, after all? It took a little mental catching up to finally recognize him as Leo Bosse, a local banker and member of the city council, and we took a few minutes to catch up on events since our last visit.

In short, the city was more than happy to see Knight and Dei visit again for the holiday weekend. They had set aside a prime spot by the sports complex for us to park the trailer, and the neighbor had an extension cord laid out for us to plug the RV into, plus one for the work site.

“That will keep us from having to run the generator,” I said, looking at the pencil sketch he had provided. “We’ll have to find a way to say thanks.”

Wamego had a number of events going on over this weekend, including pony rides, a carnival, antique car show, petting zoo, various open houses, and ending with a gigantic fireworks display. Leo had put us away from the main carnival area as we had requested, with enough space over the soccer fields and baseball diamonds to let the ponies strut their stuff without clipping anybody in the head with a hoof. Of course when we got to the location they had staked out with tiny red wire flags, I had to back the trailer into position next to a utility shed, and another complication promptly cropped up.

“Since the fireworks display for tomorrow is right over there on the baseball diamond, I presume you won’t want us flying over it, and it’s dangerous to fly over the highway. Will it be all right for them to fly south along the jogging path, make a turnaround in the soccer fields, and return the same way?”

“They can bank that sharp?” asked Leo, shading his eyes to look out along the prospective path where it turned at the edge of the ball diamonds.

“Easily. Besides, the passengers love at least one steep turn,” I assured him. “They’ll stay high enough not to cause a panic on the ground and avoid flying over anybody anyway, just in case. Almost nobody throws up,” I had to add, “but just in case, we’ll need some water for the buckets.”

By the time Knight and Dei returned, Leo and I had things organized for the afternoon, although all the expensive equipment was still stored inside the trailer. Experience had taught me not to expect work before play with vacationing Equestrians, and I was not disappointed. The two pegasi were frisky this morning, and cruised down to ground level with a fairly large chunk of cloud they had picked off a nearby cumulus.

It fascinated Leo, even moreso when the pegasi formed it into a crib and placed it on top of several straw bales so Twilight could take an early nap. Thankfully, Leo only chatted with the happy couple for a few minutes before leaving on his own, and the pegasi vanished into the RV for a shower and other morning activities I really did not need to observe.

That left me slack time to settle in beside the snoozing colt, recline my lawn chair, and apply sunblock against the upcoming Kansas heat. Really, I expected an hour of relative quiet to enjoy the sunrise, so I got out my iPad to post Facebook updates, then opened up the Kindle app and started reading again.

I had just gotten to a good part when I saw a police car pull into the parking lot next to the RV. I waved the officer over, since I really did not want him interrupting the vacationing couple’s peace, and stood up as he walked nearer.

“Shh,” I started out, pointing at the cloud crib. “Twilight’s sleeping. Can I help you, officer?”

After a brief introduction and the inevitable adoration of the sleeping pegasus colt, looking much like a cluster of equine violets in a snowbank, Deputy Friendly sat down on a nearby straw bale and got to the point. The sheriff’s department was worried. Well, concerned about a number of things. Having Equestrian visitors in town, exposed to unruly humans, with the first pegasus foal born on this side of the portal, and actually running a business that could get overrun by screaming fans…

“As long as you don’t bother my friends, you can post deputies to watch over us as much as you want, like last time we were here,” I said, sliding into one of my favorite stories. “The big grey batpony’s a Royal Guard, after all. He weighs as much as a linebacker, but he’s gentle as a kitten. There was this one time when I was walking with his family in a KC mall when one of the local miscreants decided he was going to steal Twilight right off his mother’s back. Scooped him up and was off like a shot. Well, Karma caught up with him in less than forty yards. Lost two teeth, multiple contusions, broke both legs, fractured arm, bitten finger. It was a real mess.”

The deputy gave a low whistle.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Thankfully, Knight caught up with them at that point and pulled Dei off the creep, or I don’t know what would have happened. Mama wasn’t happy, at all. She may look like a bowl of sugared strawberries and cream from her color, but she’s a mother all the way through.”

The deputy did not immediately respond, but his stunned face spoke volumes and he did not stay long. After exchanging a few more anecdotes about my job experience to this point, he left me alone with my morning responsibilities, which was a relief.

There was an uncomfortable point I had not brought up during our discussion. Even though I had a Japanese grandmother, I was not exactly a Kung Fu panda. Between my other Italian ancestors and a bad deal from the genetic deck of cards, that left me considerably on the smaller side of male humanity, and despite taking several self-defense courses, there was no way I could deal with any attacker who outweighed me by double or more. So that’s the reason I had my concealed carry permit and a .22 pistol in my front pocket holster ever since before I started nurse’s training. After all, that was about the safest way to carry and least likely to fall out when dancing, so if I ever was in a situation where I needed it, I’d have it. There’s no way I was going to lug ten pounds of iron around all day in the Kansas heat, no matter how comfortable the holster or how accurate it was at the gun range.

Worst case, the smallest gun in your pocket is far more useful than the biggest gun you have in your gun safe. When doing emergency room duty, I had seen several burly people incapacited with small gunshot wounds, and despite the gun crowd going on forever about the need for big guns with huge magazines, in the unlikely event I was ever attacked, I was not going down peacefully. I might not be able to fight some nasty thug with a knife, but I stood a far better chance if he had a half-dozen small leaky holes in him.

The legality was not an issue, because all of the states we were planning to visit had concealed carry reciprocity with my Kansas license, and if we ever visited a state that did not, one of Knight’s unicorn buddies had set me up with a lockbox in the RV that literally would not be there in certain states. Put the gun away before crossing the state line, travel with no risk of being arrested for an illegal firearm, and put it back in my pocket when we crossed into a more civilized state again. Someday, that particular enchantment would probably drive international law enforcement nuts, but as long as I didn’t say anything, I was willing to accept the benefit of my employer’s friends and not cheat the system.

I had discussed my pocket pistol with the young couple when we first started traveling, and although Dei had not been overly enthusiastic about it at first, by the time we visited the first firing range she was all in. Personally, I thought it was primarily because pegasi love loud noises like thunder, no matter what girly color they were. Even Twilight doesn’t sleep during a thunderstorm, but stays awake and makes happy horse noises whenever there’s a particularly loud boom or crash.

This week had proven… interesting in that regard, because fireworks sales had started several days ago, and most small towns we visited sounded just a bit like a war zone, with a crescendo in firepower expenditure right after sundown. It made Twilight difficult to put to bed in the evenings, so we had taken to parking the RV on hills overlooking the best displays. I would snooze under the setting sun in my reclining lawn chair while the family critiqued the booms and sparks, then move indoors to the air conditioning once the little pegasus had calmed down enough to sleep.

Catching a quick nap under the morning sun worked just as well as sunset. I woke up from my doze when Knight and Dei glided over to our setup spot, both freshly washed and smelling of Mane and Tail shampoo, which I’ll admit had worked just fine on my hair too this morning.

“Hey, Carl. You mind if we go up to Colorado Springs after this?” asked Dei. “Knight wants to see Cave of the Winds, and I want to hike up Pikes Peak. Not the whole thing, of course,” she added from what must have leaked out of my expression. “We can ride the cog railroad to the top, then get off part of the way down for some hiking, then camping somewhere. One of the people we met this morning said it’s beautiful this time of year.”

“It’s beautiful most of the year,” I admitted. “I’m just glad you don’t want to go when there’s ten feet of snow on the ground. Since I ruined my last pair of sneakers on our last camping trip, I’m still going to need new boots.”

“Bootses,” declared Twilight from the edge of his cloud crib. The days when he spent half of his life sleeping were long gone, and I was just glad his early flying spurts had tapered off into just energetic wing-beating or I never would have been able to keep up with him. A human child of the same age would not have been even close to the same developmental level, but that’s not to say everything was perfect.

“I can take Twilight shopping, if you want, Dei.” His baby bag was more of a knapsack, but I had kept it under the cloud-crib for just this occasion, and opened it up for the next step. “Get you into a pull-up and we’ll go look at boots. How does that sound, little guy?”

“No,” he declared, which was his second-favorite word. I shrugged and made a big deal out of putting the equine-friendly wrapping back into the bag. Some Equestrian genius had contacted the Earth diaper manufacturers a few months back, and now all we needed to do for a new bundle of them was to make one quick phone call and put up with the ‘Pampers’ stamped on the back of them, a bit of win-win in advertising.

“That’s fine, Carl. Twi-Twi is going to love our morning together,” declared Dei. “We’re going to the Pottawatomie county museum, and look at all of the antique human gadgets and gizmos.”

The word worked. Little Twilight quit moving toward his mother and gave me a plaintive look. When Knight and Dei had gone to Pioneer Village in Nebraska, their son had lasted about five hours of trucks and cars and mechanical toys behind glass before he lost it, and we spent the rest of the day outside in the campgrounds, playing with the human children. Ever since then, museums and veterinarians have much the same negative appeal to the little colt.

“Well, I suppose.” I reluctantly stood up and stretched. “I probably should buy another pair of cargo shorts too while I’m at it. You two lovebirds be careful with Twilight at the museum and make sure he doesn’t pee on anything important. I’ll drop by McDonalds for breakfast and meet you downtown around noon.”

“Donads.” Twilight moved from his parents’ side of the crib over to mine and gave me a mournful look. “Eggies.”

“You know how eggs give you gas.” I cocked my head sideways and held up the diaper bag for his mother. “Besides, they don’t let little colts into McDonalds who aren’t potty trained yet. You’d need to wear a diaper.”

“Eggies,” proclaimed Twilight while climbing over my side of the crib. With a human toddler his age, I would need a little red wagon to tow him around town, but a few quick wraps of velcro-enabled diaper later, I clipped a leash around his torso and off we went in a clatter of hooves.

Yes, it’s a dog leash, but he helped pick it out, and is quite proud of the bright red thing, even if we get odd looks when I’m walking the ‘dog.’ In short order, the people at McDonalds were also perplexed but pleased to see Twilight up on a bench, burying his face into the ‘small’ fraction of my bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. The other customers took several pictures, of course, and I made certain that no more than a tiny fleck of bacon was left on top of his portion so there would not be any dramatic aftereffects. He even drank an entire child-sized bottle of orange juice with a little help, and fairly demanded to visit the potty afterward.

If I ever have kids of my own, I’m going to be prepared. Well, mostly. I probably won’t let them run naked while walking downtown or sniff the flowers along the sidewalk, and when we stop to look at the garage sales, I’ll probably stand a much better chance of finding them some clothes that fit.

During our trip downtown, we met several of the townspeople who were celebrating the upcoming holiday by selling their leftover stuff, and were perfectly happy to spoil the little pegasus colt with attention while I browsed their miscellaneous garage sale items. That’s how we wound up with the mountain bike on the back of the RV last month, and much of the kitchenware we have accumulated so far. I just try not to think about Knight and Dei taking that velvet painting of Elvis back home and explaining it. Or all the ceramic mournful children.

Our walk to Vanderbelts passed without any significant disasters, other than Twilight briefly slipping out of his diaper to relieve himself in one of the flower planters on the way, but that probably only encouraged the flowers to bloom brighter and made it less likely that he was going to leave a puddle on the store floor. He absolutely loved the shoe section of the clothing store, although part of that involved putting his head inside a boot and then running around the store laughing until somebody freed him. About the third time, I had finished with my purchases and gotten everything into the bag, so I was the one to pull the boot off and look him in the face.

“Boo,” I said.

“Gain!” declared Twilight.

“Not likely,” I said with a chuckle. “There’s a park with a train caboose down the street. Let’s run some of that excess energy off there.”

Despite the Kansas heat, it was easier to handle Twilight outside. He needed some sunscreen on his ears and back, and I had an hourly timer reminder on my iPhone to give us each a bottle of water, but at least he was not knocking over displays and breaking things. Just because the little pegasus could not fly did not mean he could not jump with wing-assist to reach interesting things even above me.

That meant I was standing under the park’s train caboose trying to coax him off the roof when Knight and Dei came drifting along after their morning tourist activities.

“That’s quite a jump for his age,” said Knight proudly.

“Dear!” Dei prodded her husband in the side and directed a frown upward. “You’re just encouraging him. Come on, Twi-Twi. Jump to Mama.”

“Mama!” declared Twilight and launched himself forward with a buzz of tiny wings. I really think he could have kept going straight for a few yards if he really wanted to, but maternal attraction won out over freedom, and he accepted the resulting adoration with a great deal of giggling.

Knight fought back a yawn and looked over his shoulder at the laundromat across the street. “Dear, how about we take Twilight for a ride across the river while Carl does some of the laundry that’s been piling up?”

The Kaw river was right next to the park and looked like a good place to beat the heat, but the laundry had been accumulating, and I was the employee, after all. You would think a couple who ran around naked most of the time would not require much laundry, except there were towels, sheets, and a pile of sweaty promotional t-shirts, size XXL with some judicious wing-slit alterations. Since the 4th of July parade was tomorrow, it was a good time to get all of our public outfits clean, so in less time than I expected, I was feeding quarters into the machines and measuring detergent while the Knights were out playing.

I had originally expected us to pick up a shirt or two while on vacation because carnival and street fair vendors are a generous lot, but I suppose having your wares displayed on Equestrians made for an incredible advertising budget discount, so we had shirts from just about everybody with a paint sprayer. Over the last few weeks, every place we went with an artist in the vicinity wound up adding to the colorful collection of t-shirts until I was fairly certain I was going to have painted shirts left over for my grandchildren someday. That’s also how we wound up with the plywood cutout with their caricatures on it for parents to take selfies when we were on lunch break or otherwise busy, and ‘other’ stuff.

To quote Mel Brooks: “Merchandising.”

To quote Chevy Chase: “Vacation.”

The happy couple could have been selling rides in major cities for a couple hundred dollars a pop and exclusive appearances for a thousand or more so they didn’t have to take out a loan to buy the Winnebago, but that would have stressed them to the limit and left so many unhappy human children. So to cover all the financial extremes, we had a sliding scale of swag: free selfies (one each maximum), five bucks for a picture of the individual or group e-mailed to the pay-er, eight dollars for a plastic “Knight and Dei” photo stand, fifteen dollars for a photo book that had the Kansas City diplomatic corps staff and their tasks described, twenty dollars for an Equestrian book of color postcards, five dollars for a coloring book (limit one), and a free catalog of Equestrian collectables from the embassy, which had items starting at a hundred dollars each and going rapidly up into the stratosphere from there.

After all, this was a vacation, just the happy couple, their newborn son, and their human au pair. We didn’t need any extra stress or drama.

“Excuse me,” said a little old lady who had watched me come into the laundromat with a determined squint. “Are you with those circus ponies? The ones who fly?”

Since the colorful shirts were delicate enough to need hand-washing, she caught me with an entire handful of ‘Fly Knight and Dei Air’ in the sink, and several shirts with smiling painted ponies waiting for their turn in the wash.

“Yes, I am,” I said with a practiced smile. “Dei will be giving rides this afternoon, but if you want to sign up, you probably should wait until this evening when we get out the carriage. It’s more stable,” I added rather than try to explain the weight limit of Dei’s saddle. Little old ladies tended to carry a little old extra weight around the edges, and were denser than they appeared. Thankfully, we have a scale at the Flight Site. Unthankfully, it can sometimes take a lot of effort for people to accept the resulting numbers. We have pictures. It isn’t pretty.

“Isn’t one of them—” she lowered her voice and looked over at the laundromat door “—some sort of devil-creature?”

That question was familiar territory, due to being in the Bible Belt, and I dusted off my most popular answer. “Actually, Knight is the sweetest thing. He sang one of the baritone parts of The Messiah for Easter at the Kansas City opera house this year, and later the two of them volunteered at a fundraiser for the Little Sisters of the Poor. Mother Margeret gave him a silver crucifix blessed by the Pope, and he wears it whenever the two of them perform at a church during their travels. Dei can sing Ave Maria so well it always brings me to tears.”

I left out Twilight totally. He was a little ball of mischief, but nowhere near the devil that he could be if he tried.

“Oh,” said the lady in a way that indicated she did not believe me for a minute, although she returned to removing her laundry from the dryer and folding it. I thought that was going to be the end of it, but some time later when I was waiting on the last load of laundry to dry, Knight came dropping down into the doorway of the laundromat with a dramatic squish, carrying Twilight on his back.

“Carl! Look!” The water-soaked batpony darted inside with a clatter of wet hooves, grinning as broadly as I had ever seen him before. It displayed a lot of his sharp white teeth, which caused the little old lady to gasp and jump backward, although our attention was shifted to the child immediately afterward.

Little Twilight was soaked to the fuzzy skin, with a wriggling minnow in his teeth, or more correctly the tail of the flopping fish-ette.

“He dove right in the river and caught it!” declared Knight. “Get a picture, please. Get a couple. Do you think we can go outside where the light is better? Oh, just take a picture before he eats it.”

I already had my phone out and taken several photos, then followed when Knight scurried outside to the parking lot for more photographs in the sunlight. Dei caught up by then and landed behind him, leading to a rather good if-I-say-so-myself picture with proud father and son fisherponies and the mother rolling her eyes behind them.

“They’re going to print a thousand of those all over Kansas City,” I muttered since all of the pony pictures were stored on iCloud and reviewed by the Embassy staff for any possible diplomatic problems, with the best ones posted on their website. “Come fish in the scenic Kansas waters. Only try to use a fishing pole.”

I got a paper cup out of the laundromat for the misplaced minnow, then gave it to Dei so it could be returned to the river in a less dramatic fashion.

“Fisss,” declared Twilight with several tongue extensions and wrinkled-up expressions to get fish-slime off his taste buds.

“Bath,” I declared. “The Kaw river is all muddy, and you’re going to smell like fish for your nap this afternoon. You too, Dad,” I added, giving Knight a stern look which he was unable to return due to his continued smiling. “Why don’t you three go over to the swimming pool and get showered in some clean water, then play in the pool for a while. Afterwards, Twilight can take a nap while Dei gives some late-afternoon rides.”

As an employee, I can’t give orders, but I try to give good advice. Our published schedule on Facebook had a space for rides in the late afternoon, but no specifics about who would be providing them. Knight needed some sleep-time too, because he was nocturnal and liked to spend much of the night cruising unseen over the city, much like his regular patrol routes in Canterlot.

I tried not to think of him as Batman, but sometimes the word slipped out.

One of the nice things about small towns is they even have big city conveniences, like Uber. While the ponies were at the public pool and coincidentally the much larger showers for river-water cleaning, I made arrangements of my own. Earl the Uber driver was not quite what I expected from larger cities, but he and his SUV got me back to the RV so I didn’t have to walk across town with two big bags of clean laundry, so I tipped him well with a promised free ride if he came back later. By the time I was finished putting away the shirts and hanging up some towels for later, the ponies had returned.

It was a good thing, too. There were already a number of families with children starting to gather around the ‘Flight Sight’ sign at the pony trailer, and they gave out a little cheer when Dei landed next to them like a perfect pink powder-puff.

“We’ll be ready to go just as soon as we’ve got the sulky out of the trailer,” she announced. “It’s time for Twilight’s nap, so my husband is going to put him into the RV while we get ready.”

Normally, Knight liked to sunbathe while sleeping, sometimes on top of the parked RV, although with a beach towel under him to prevent any scorching. Since I was going to be busy with the rides this afternoon, it was a relief to give Knight a nod as I passed him on the way to the trailer. Twilight looked as if he wanted to jump off Knight’s back and run over to the children, but he was yawning enough that it took no real effort for his father to hustle him into the RV and close the door for his nap. Their naps.

The routine of getting out the bright pink one-rider sulky was practiced enough that I could keep the crowd verbally entertained without skipping a step, even when I helped Dei out of her saddle and into the traces. Thankfully, Equestrians did not take as many straps and buckles as a normal pony, even though Dei was going to take her passengers up into the air. All it really took was one strap around the middle with equine-friendly releases on the buckles, but we used both a belly-strap and a loose collar so they wouldn’t chafe or fall off when either of the two troublemakers would make a loop, which they were not supposed to do, but occasionally ‘forgot.’

Thankfully, pegasi are ‘sticky’ when they want to be. I don’t understand it either.

For the passenger’s safety during regular flight or memory lapses, there was a seat belt on the sulky, or more accurately a thick nylon belt that the passenger would wear and which was connected to a turnbuckle behind them to keep little fingers out of the connection. The location of the restraint’s latch was important, although it took a lot of work for the Equestrians to figure out the best way of restraining humans.

The prime reason for it was idiot teenagers.

Still, we posted a warning on the rules about standing in the middle of the flight. Since we collect the money before takeoff, we can’t fine the morons who do that, but the flight ends right there and the ponies land to walk back to the trailer while I work through my practiced speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed an abrupt end to the current ride because the customers did not pay attention to the rules we have plainly posted on this board. Please enjoy your ride and don’t be a jerk like those guys.”

One ride per customer was a rule, too. Even idiots who had their rides come to an abrupt stop. Anybody who complained was encouraged to pass along their gripe to the Equestrian Embassy, although I had not heard of anybody that stupid.

This afternoon’s crowd looked extremely intelligent, and were abiding by the rules quite well, particularly the first one: “Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. The pony couple is here on their vacation. If there is fighting in line, they will leave.”

We only had to do that twice, both times in large cities.

Normally, we have a check-in list for the customers to reserve a time slot, but today was a less-organized visit, and I had not been exactly positive if the couple was going to be working. I got out the merchandise and strung up the ‘Launch Pad’ banner between riders, and fell into the comfortable routine again. Part of the job was making sure Dei took a break every fifteen minutes to hydrate, although some of the customers just got their pictures taken with her instead of getting up the courage to ride, so that was a good use of time. After a few hours, the crowd thinned out enough that I felt comfortable putting up the ‘Back Later’ sign so the two of us could take a break, although Dei was doing all the heavy lifting while all I was doing was taking money and photographs.

“It’s just for an hour so so,” I reassured the waiting children, most of whom already had their ride. “Dei has to feed her son, and I thought we’d take a walk down to the carnival. We don’t want her to get too tired, and Knight will be up when it gets dark. He only gives rides for a little while, since most people don’t like riding at night.”

That wasn’t exactly true, since a lot of people did like vanishing off into the darkness with Knight proudly showing off his maneuverability, but it was a lot harder to track down where the passengers threw up so I could spread kitty litter.

By the time I got all the moveable stuff put back into the trailer and the last few souvenir-buying customers taken care of, the sun was fairly well on the way to the horizon. This had been a good time to give Dei a break anyway, because it had been a while since she fed Twilight and she was starting to dribble a little, embarrassing as that was.

Since I was a good employee, I strolled over to the nearby Kreem Kup so when she was done with the feeding, I was able to meet her at the RV door with a soft-serve ice cream cone for a calcium-reinforced snack.

“Here you go, ma’am.”

One of the better parts of the job was seeing a beautiful young female smile. It was contagious, and spread while the three of us took a short walk down to the park where the carnival was set up for some entertainment and a quick snack for all of us. Our primary reason for the side-trip was food, because I had been so busy that I missed lunch and I didn’t nosh off the alfalfa bale between flights like Dei. The secondary reason for our trip was to give Knight a few more hours under the covers, because he didn’t sleep well when babysitting Twilight in the RV.

I could understand. The little pegasus was attracted to trouble like his namesake, Twilight Sparkle. When I was watching him, I always had to keep at least one eye open, and here in particular since he was also attracted to powdered sugar, much like his mother. Dei loved funnel cakes and went through two of them during our snack stop at the carnival, permitting me to only sneak a few of the tasty morsels out from under her nose for Twilight.

While Dei was distracted by a few chattering teenagers and a cheese-covered pretzel, I took Twilight for a quick trip to the Knights of Columbus stand to get myself a hot dog and some chips. The older ladies at the stand adored him, of course, and spoiled him with little bits of everything he would nibble on. I did discourage them from feeding him too many potato chips because that much salt and grease is bad despite the bottomless pits that pegasi have for bellies. Twilight even tried a teeny bit of sauerkraut, but promptly made a face and declared ‘Icky!’ before his mother caught up with us.

Just because we planned on avoiding the regular carnival rides did not mean we were immune to begging violet eyes. After a brief detour for a round-and-round kiddie car ride and two trips down the ‘Giant Slide’ at the far end of the rides, we headed back to the flight line with a trail of future customers in our wake. The smallest child, who had made the persuasive argument of ‘Up!’ to Dei, was riding proudly on the mother pegasus’ back, shoeless and with fingers buried in her curly mane.

I didn’t mind carrying both Twilight’s leash and the girl’s shoes, because Dei had put the saddle away for our side-trip. Without it, she has no way to keep the kids from kicking her in the ribs, and with all the flight muscles there, it’s terribly painful. You’ve never really lived until you’ve given a full-body massage to a tired pegasus with sore muscles, Knight in particular. Despite his crusty macho exterior, once you get him on his side and start rubbing, he purrs. It’s the darnedest thing.

Knight was awake and back at the flight line by the time we returned, so we got out the two-pony sulky and started with pairs, mostly one daring parent and a child, although a few couples. Odd how those flights have a little ‘turbulence’ in the middle for some shrieking and grabbing onto each other.

While I cycled people through the line, Twilight stayed mostly in his crib or within easy reach. I have to credit Dei for his good behavior during public appearances more than my influence, but it kept the line of people waiting for a ride peaceful and entertained with ear-scratches and adoration for the adorable colt.

The kid is going to be so spoiled, which of course is practically inevitable regardless of species. The children in every place we go—that is the human children—are always so same and different at once, even in a predominantly German-European farming community like most of Kansas.

On a related note, Knight and Dei had not originally planned on touring the American Midwest. Two years ago when they were still working in Equestria, they had made plans to take a more traditional trip to China with one of the American tours. With that in mind, they had been taking language lessons right up to the point where one of the Equestrian pegasi with no connection to their embassy had made a flyover during a human event, towing a ‘Free Tibet’ banner.

That had not gone over well at all, particularly since the Equestrian embassy refused to punish the responsible party or even issue an official apology, and the resulting ongoing diplomatic tiff put a hold on their tourism plans. To complicate matters, Dei turned up pregnant at roughly the same time, so the idea of vacationing halfway around the world from the Equestrian portal lost some of its appeal. So they changed language tutors before their assignment to the KC embassy, studied while at their jobs, and now speak American fairly well, although with a recognizable southern accent from their tutor. They may still visit China in a year or two, but for today, a little bit of China visited us.

This brings us to one of our more unusual customers, just as it was starting to get dark.

I know enough Spanish to make myself understood to most of the Mexican patients at work and some Japanese from my grandmother for proper cursing, but one of the side-benefits of this job is a certain amount of linguistic expansion. The couple was trying to teach me Equestrian, but the language is rigidly tonal, and at times they tended to slip effortlessly from English to Mandarin to their native tongue without realizing it.

The pegasi had just landed with a young couple when I became aware of a vigorous discussion in Mandarin behind me, caused by an elderly lady and her family cautiously working their way through the grass to the landing area. Her walker was making short work of the uneven terrain and she seemed to be fairly reluctant to see ‘Mǎ’ except for the encouraging efforts of at least three generations of her offspring chattering away around her. From their outfits, the older customers had slipped out of their jobs at a nearby restaurant so they could bring the children and Grandmother over during a slack period. Their language was not really a surprise, since a number of Chinese restaurants in the US Midwest have more ethnic-aligned employees than one would expect, some of whom are third or fourth generation citizens but still speak Mandarin or other Far Eastern languages.

Despite my struggles with the language, the pegasi had taught me several phrases I couldn’t mangle too much. Once I had the young couple out of the cart, I turned to the elderly Chinese lady and managed, “<Good Evening, Young Lady. Would you like to buy a…>”

The consequences of using a wrong word were obvious, but thankfully both Knight and Dei scurried up behind me and began practicing their limited expertise of the language, which left me as a bystander. In astonishingly short order, the pegasi were airborne again with two of the children while I remained on the ground with the relatives.

Thankfully, before I could embarrass myself any more, the elderly grandmother patted me on the wrist and spoke in English with a thick accent, “Don’t you worry, child. My second cousin Lu called when he saw you were in town. We follow you on Facebook. He say those two make buffet go away like fat comedian, what’s his name?”

“John Pinette,” I responded. “Hell of a comic. Oops, sorry.”

The old woman chuckled and pointed to the west. “Bring them by restaurant few blocks that way sometime. We feed them like they never been fed before.”

“I’ll bet.” I looked at her relatives who had queued up in pairs, waiting for the first riders to return. “So, who are you going with?”

“Not me.” The old woman held one wrinkled hand to her loose blouse. “Just here to see the ponies. Listen to children chatter about this for years.”

I didn’t think much about it while dealing with the other riders, trying to figure out who was paying for what, and how much. Thank God for credit cards or we’d be holding onto a lot more money at the end of the night than I’m comfortable with, despite Knight’s looming presence for security. I’m always careful with the paperwork because I get to do the income and tax forms, which is probably why I didn’t notice something fairly important until the last pair of riders had vanished off into the rapidly darkening park and I was tucking the night’s receipts into my shoulder bag for counting later.

“Wait a moment,” said one of the gathered family, holding onto one of the permission forms that doubled as an order form for photos and various souvenirs, as well as a liability waiver. “We haven’t paid for grandmother’s ride yet.”

“Oh, I’m not going,” scoffed the elderly Chinese lady. “I refuse to let you waste your money that way, and that’s final.”

“Last ride of the night is free,” I said reflexively at the looks of disappointment on the family’s faces, who quite obviously had argued unsuccessfully with the old woman many times over the years. “Of course, I’ll need somebody to go with her so the sulky is balanced.”

“They’ve all gone already,” said the woman, pointing at our rule board. “One ride per customer. No exception.”

“Well, I haven’t gone yet,” I said.

From there on, it was a losing battle for Grandma, although her heart was not in the fight. By the time the ponies returned, I had Twilight situated with a whole group of responsible young foalsitters, my shoulder bag latched shut so the day’s receipts would be safe, and a happy smile for my employers. It wasn’t the first time we convinced a reluctant older lady or gentleman to go for the last ride of the night free, and come to think of it, there was an older Chinese guy named Lu who we had done this with once before.

Maybe I’m not as smart as I think.

It really did not matter, because there were few employee benefits worth more than the feeling of flight, the ground dropping away as the trees seemed to grow abruptly shorter, and the wind in my face.

“We normally run the last flight a little longer and slower so Knight and Dei can get all limbered up,” I explained as the sulky rose above the treetops, far higher than their usual trip. “I left Knight’s number with your family so they can call us if they have any problems with Twilight. Is there anyplace in town you’d like to fly by?”

“Oooo,” exclaimed the old woman, sucking in a lungful of damp Kansas evening air across exposed teeth and a smile that I suspected would last for days, much like my first flight. “The windmill. And the swimming pool. I never get to— Oh!”

The sulky banked effortlessly to one side as the couple shifted flight vectors. The Wamego park had an old stone windmill with four arms and some exterior lighting that made it really stand out in the growing darkness, and the pegasi drifted us at almost a walking pace over the quiet public pool, shut down for the night and glittering in the lights of the nearby carnival. We even took a leisurely diversion over the city park, with no more noise than the quiet brushing of treetops along the bottom of the sulky and the sounds of a few local children winding up their game at the old baseball diamond.

Every small town was different, and I was fairly certain that the pegasi had scouted out all of the power lines during their daytime trips, so I was not too concerned about hitting something in the dark. It still added a taste of excitement to the flight, with the whoosh of flying underneath the river bridge and watching the cars drive by overhead, the slow slalom above lines of rural streetlights, the quiet swoop past one golf cart headed to the clubhouse with two overweight men waving as we passed by. We even flew out to her Chinese restaurant and made a single pass around the outside to the glee of our passenger and one quick wave at one of the remaining employees who had stepped out the kitchen door for a breath of fresh air.

“Need to watch them every day,” chortled the old lady as we flew back along Highway 24, although far higher than the cars below. “This almost unfair.”

Her family fairly swarmed Grandma the moment we landed, and it took far longer than usual to get them on their way with extra picture frames for the few dozen photos they took during our landing. Little Twilight was sad to see all of his new friends go, but snuggled up to his mother like a magnet headed for a refrigerator, and with much the same amount of hunger. Knight stuck around long enough to help me get the sulky loaded into the trailer and the tailgate closed, then gave a look over his shoulder at the RV where his wife had just gone.

“Pizza?” he asked.

“I see why Dei is so attracted to you,” I responded, huffing as I put the rules board into the trailer’s side door. “Let me get you a strap so you don’t leave a trail of loose pizza boxes on the way back. Want me to call it in while you fly, or you just going to drop in and scare the everloving bejesus out of the employees?”

Knight’s grin showed as a line of glittering white teeth in the growing darkness. “I thought we could take a walk around town first, once Twilight gets fed. We bought a whole bag of fireworks to go with yours, after all.”

Naturally, we did not want to shoot our fireworks anywhere near our launch pad, which was right next to the city’s display that was being gathered for tomorrow, and the city did not want that either. Thankfully, there was an informal gathering spot for the locals to participate in the festivities down by the railroad where loose sparks would not start a grass fire. After a short walk, we met a few dozen other people with various amounts of Chinese explosives, watched Twilight run around with other children, and generally enjoyed the explosions of the evening.

It was a lot like being with a human couple and their newborn, except for the wings, of course. There were some differences. Human children could carry sparklers in their hands instead of their mouths. so it was far safer for them and anybody in the vicinity. On the other hand, pegasi had to hold a lighting punk in their teeth to ignite firework displays, so they were able to see the fuse more accurately.

Children of both species still got too close to the bang. So did Knight, who absolutely loved the mortar-type fireworks to the point where I was fairly sure I’d have to search the RV to keep him from stashing any of them for later. When it came time to head back ‘home’ for the evening, I dumped what was left of my community-contributed glass of water on a persistently smoldering spot on his tail and we said goodbye to the neighbors, carrying Twilight so he would not run back to the exciting noises.

“Come on, Trouble,” I said to the wriggling pony-ette in his carrier. “Your daddy says he wants pizza for tonight.”

“Za?” Twilight turned around to look straight up at me with his warm nose underneath my chin. “Za!”

By the time we walked back to the RV, Knight had vanished off into the night, conveniently missing the colt-wash and dry session. His return was triumphant, his cheesy cargo appreciated, and his start on dinner delayed as Dei chased him into the shower due to clinging gunpowder residue on his grey coat.

Personally, I suspected it was because she wanted her choice of the Pizza Hut veggie-lovers, stuffed crust, with extra cheese. I had my own favorite, half and half of course, although I occasionally lost a slice of BBQ chicken portion to Knight, or Dei would nibble on the meat lovers just a bit. She liked it, but indigestion would follow if she ate too much, so the two of them generally settled for my extra stuffed pizza crusts with a hefty dose of marinara sauce.

It was a perfect end for a darned nice day. I propped my feet up and reclined the captain’s chair, got my pizza box, and chatted along with the rest of the family while Kiki’s Delivery Service played on the big screen TV. I liked to think of the resulting discussion as part of our Terrestrial/Equestrian cultural familiarization process, although animated fiction necessitated a certain amount of translation to match reality. After all, the protagonist of the story could fly, so it was applicable, the pegasi really were interested about what the role of a witch would be in the real world, and if any pegasi would move to Earth to work delivery..

After a time, Twilight curled up in my arms like a big affectionate dog, and by the end of the movie, I had to carry him to his crib, then climb up into the cabover section of the RV for my own night’s sleep.

The job was over for the day, but tomorrow was the Fourth of July, so the schedule started early and went late.